With new Florida Supreme Court, House takes aim at limiting personal-injury lawsuit damages

TALLAHASSEE — With a new conservative Florida Supreme Court, state House Republicans arereigniting a three-decade legislative war by pushing to limit damages for pain and suffering in personal injury cases, a major goal of big business lobbies and insurance companies.

The bill (HB 17), which would place a $1 million cap on noneconomic damages, is sponsored by Rep. Tom Leek, chief legal counsel for Foundation Risk Partners, a Daytona Beach insurance brokerage. He said the caps are necessary to “balance out” Florida’s legal climate and ensure stability for insurers and businesses facing high litigation costs.

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“What this does is put a cap on a very small sliver on available damages,” Leek said. “In any [personal injury] case you can get lost wages; this doesn’t affect it. You can get past medical [costs] and future medical [costs]; this doesn’t affect it.”

Leek said he didn’t see any conflict in sponsoring the bill despite his employment in the insurance industry and the heavy political contributions he has received from it.

He said the bill would limit liability for insurance carriers and would mean lower premiums for consumers, but there’s no provision requiring insurers to lower their premiums. But because he believes premiums would drop, he thinks it would hurt insurance brokers like his company, instead of helping them.

“Insurance agencies do not bear risk. Insurance agencies only collect a premium,” Leek said. “The higher the premium the more insurance agencies make. This has the opposite effect.”

Out of the $145,000 that Leek’s political committee, Living Life With Purpose, has received since 2017, $49,000 has come from the insurance industry, including $25,000 from his old insurance broker firm, Brown & Brown, and $16,500 from Florida Blue, a large health insurer, state campaign finance records show.

The Florida Supreme Court knocked down caps on pain and suffering damages in 1986 and a medical malpractice law passed in 2003 with similar limits on damages was chipped away at by the court in recent decisions.

But Leek says the law has changed dramatically since the 1980s.

“What we’re doing is we’re putting it back into play so that the court can re-evaluate that based on the evolution in the last 40 years,” he said.

And the makeup of the court has changed drastically in the past three months. Among Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first acts in office was to name three conservative justices to the bench – Barbara Lagoa, Robert Luck and Carlos Muñiz – to replace three outgoing liberal justices, installing a 6-1 conservative majority.

The bill fits the goal of big business lobbies such as the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Associated Industries of Florida to lower litigation costsfor so-called tort cases, which they argue run rampant in Florida.

The bill is opposed by the Florida Justice Association, a group representing trial attorneys. The group has enjoyed its own outsized influence in the Legislature in recent years, as former House Speaker Richard Corcoran and former Senate President Joe Negron, who led their chambers from 2016-2018, had strong trial attorney ties.

The justice association’spolitical committee has received $11.4 million from trial lawyers since 2013, which has poured it into campaigns for Republicans and Democrats alike. It’s given $172,000 to the Republican Party of Florida since 2016, and another $125,000 for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ inauguration.

It’s contributed nearly $1 million to the Florida Democratic Party in the same time.

Leek is pushing another bill (HB 355), which would reduce the liability for owners of cars or other “dangerous instruments” used by others that end up causing harm. The state’s “dangerous instrumentality doctrine” holds a vehicle owner liable if they loan it to another person who then causes an accident. It applies tocars and other vehicles ranging from heavy construction equipment to golf carts.

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The bill would remove that liability for heavy equipment, set parameters on when to apply the doctrine and exempt rental car companies or others that lease vehicles. It passed through its first committee Wednesday.

Leslie Kroeger, president-elect of the FJA, said she was concerned the way the bill was written could lead to a slippery slope, if courts interpret it in a way that erodes the doctrine.

“If we’re trying to completely wipe out this doctrine, then not only do we oppose it but my hair’s on fire we oppose it so much,” Kroeger told the committee.

Leek’s bills face an uphill climb this year. He acknowledged the concerns of some members with the $1 million cap, saying it might have to be increased.

Both bills passed have passed through their first committee stop in the first two weeks of the legislative session, which is slated to end May 3, but the Senate versions of the bills are less aggressive, applying only to how medical costs are calculated and exempting rental car companies from the dangerous instruments doctrine.

“We’re going to be very cautious,” Senate President Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, told reporters last week. “It’s not that I haven’t supported tort reform in the past, but we’re going to scrutinize everything that comes over in that regard.”